Michael Feldman wrote:
> The Ada "mandate" is in a different category. Recall that DoD is
> mandating _nothing_ on companies who are not selling software to
> DoD. The mandate has never been more than, essentially, a contract
> provision. "He who pays the piper gains the right to call the tune."
Right. In "my neck of the woods", the DoD for the most part, is the
customer. I assume that folks like us are the only ones "chafing" under
the "burden" of Ada. But as you say, the general mentality is
widespread.
> > What there is instead is an equal and opposite mandate known as
> > anti-mandatism that will flock to C/C++ because these languages are more
> > "fun".
>
> Hey - you forgot Java! :-)
I was aiming for the major league offenders ;-)
> We'll see. The NRC report made a big deal of the large Ada installed base
> (in warfighting, anyway). That might keep things going till DoD learns
> the hard way that C++ might not be the ideal Silver Bullet for building
> Silver Bullets.
I hope you are right.
> > Now I will put that opinion on the shelf since it is no longer of any
> > utility. Thanks for letting me vent.
>
> I second that emotion. Let's get out and show by every example we
> can that Ada is the way to go.
Amen.
> Having just come back from SIGCSE, by the way, I can say that lots
> of educational institutions are finding C++ to be --errr-- less than
> ideal for their intro courses. They are, of course, taking a hard look
> at Java, but they are _also_ taking a hard look at Ada. Whereas 5 years ago,
> the very idea of Ada would be laughed out of many faculties, Ada is
> winning some faculty votes now, and even if Ada loses, it is now
> a serious candidate. They're not laughing so hard now. This is good.:-)
I suddenly have a picture in my mind of 10 years from now (perhaps even
sooner): Having to switch to Ada for new projects because there just
aren't enough C++ programmers available.
--
James Squire mailto:m193884 no junk mail
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MDA Avionics Tools & Processes
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